This week the crickets have appeared. Summer has seemed shorter this year than in the past, and the chirping of crickets always indicates the immanent end of swimming season.

Still, I'm squeezing everything out of the beach I can. See if I can swim well into September.

For the record, the blackberry harvest has lived up to expectations making this the best berry year I've seen for everything. We picked and ate a lot of salal berries on Cortes, and not so many here, but the freezer is filling with blackberries.